Gather Courage  is a reprint from the original set that first introduced Convoke, Ravnica: City of Guilds. It's a decent card. For a single green mana, it gives a target creature +2/+2 until end of turn. What makes it more than simply a weaker version of Giant Growth (which is +3/+3) is that you can essentially cast it for free simply by tapping a green creature you control. Interesting that it was moved up to uncommon from its original common rarity. It would be nice to have more than a single copy of it in this deck, but that rarity bump is the reason for this.

Naturalize is your typical 1G destroy a target Artifact or Enchantment at Instant speed. It's been reprinted tons of times. Titanic Growth is 1G for an instant that gives a target creature +4/+4. Giant Growth is usually better, and it was still in Standard when this deck was first released.

Raise the Alarm  is a great reprint from Ravnica: City of Guilds. It's a common that for 1W makes 2 1/1 White Soldier creature tokens at instant speed. It's fantastic for giving you creatures to tap for your Convoke costs, and being White creatures, they help you with your White mana requirements. There are 3 copies of it in this deck. It's a very playable card that sees Modern play in Black/White tokens, and has seen Standard play whenever it's been in the format.

Devouring Light  is yet another Ravnica reprint, with awesome new artwork. It has Convoke, which means that it combines perfectly with  Raise the Alarm. For 1WW, you can exile a target attacking or blocking creature. This is very strong removal when you figure that you can potentially play this card for zero mana. Very strong card. There are two copies in the deck.

Nissa's Expedition was a new card from Magic 2015. It's a sort of ramp card, allowing you to search your deck for up to two basic lands, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. It's slightly better than a card like Cultivate, which lets you search out two lands, but one of them go into your hand. Five mana seems a bit costly for a ramp spell, especially at sorcery speed, but it does have Convoke. It was never great in Constructed, but has seen play in some Commander decks.

Sanctified Charge is another new card. It costs 4W for an instant that gives creatures you control +2/+1 and first strike until end of turn. This is an interesting combat trick, although 5 mana is a lot.  Dictate of Heliod  from Journey into Nyx is a better combat trick, and that's an Enchantment with Flash that boosts your creatures by +2/+2 as long as it remains in play. But it's not a bad common, and it's an okay Intro Pack card. The first strike is especially nice, as it can turn would-be trades into wins for you.

Meditation Puzzle is one of the Convoke cards that makes me scratch my head a little, but I see why it's in here. It's a common Instant for 3WW and Convoke that gains you 8 life. That's quite a tempo swing, and there are people that have enjoyed playing cards like Angel's Mercy - which gained you 7 life for 4 mana. It's a great Limited card, but I don't typically like it in Constructed unless you're specifically playing around a lifegain or tempo theme.

Triplicate Spirits  is a Convoke card I can get behind a bit more. It costs 4WW for a Sorcery that makes three flying 1/1 spirits. The Convoke cost makes it a bit easier to stomach, though. I like this card more than Meditation Puzzle, certainly, and getting fliers is pretty cool. I do feel it's a bit slow for Constructed, though.

Next we have Overwhelm, which is basically Overrun with Convoke. There's an obvious problem with that. Having to tap down creatures to help pay for an effect that boosts your creatures by +3/+3 until end of turn seems a bit counterproductive. Plus 5GG is a lot for that sort of effect, especially when you don't gain trample as most Overrun type effects do. I'm simply not a fan.

Feral Invocation rounds out the mana curve all the way up at a whopping nine mana (8G). However, it does make three 3/3 beasts and it does have Convoke. At the time, though, the two "Surprise Centaurs" of  Fated Intervention from Born of the Gods were simply more cost-effective. I would play that over this at Sorcery speed. Were it Instant speed it would be a cute combat trick in an Intro Pack. But at Sorcery speed, it's just very slow.

The list finishes out with 13 Forests and 12 Plains, for your typical 25 land in an intro pack.

"Will of the Masses" has a lot going for it. It shows off some of the cool things Convoke can do, by helping you amass forces that can do some serious damage. But the higher end of the curve is clogged up with what I feel are rather inefficient cards like the Seraph and some of the high cost Convoke cards. I like what Triplicate Spirits is doing and gaining 8 life out of nowhere with  Meditation Puzzle  is cute, but overall it's a bit of a disappointing finish to what starts out as a pretty cool list. The top end of the curve needs work, so I'll give this a B-minus as far as intro packs go. 

The final verdict is that this may be the second- or third-best of the Magic 2015 Intro Packs, with Flames of the Dragon being the best of the bunch. For awhile, though, when Hornet Queen skyrocketed in price, this was the most valuable.

From the name alone, you may assume that the Magic the Gathering 2015 Core Set “Flames of the Dragon” intro pack was a Dragon deck. Actually, there was  a forced artifact theme in Red & Blue in the 2015 Core Set. While one of the Dragons in this deck certainly plays into the artifact theme, they are secondary to the success of this particular deck.

Because the Red/Blue artifact theme was well designed around during this set, "Flames of the Dragon" is of the more solid Intro Packs of Magic 2015. This Intro Pack was released in July 2014 and features two rare dragons: Hoarding Dragon and Siege Dragon. However, this is not exactly a Magic 2015 dragon deck, as we will see from the deck list.


Creatures (24)

2 Ornithopter
3 Bronze Sable
2 Welkin Tern
1 Rummaging Goblin
3 Aeronaut Tinkerer
2 Krenko’s Enforcer
2 Wall of Frost
2 Juggernaut
3 Scrapyard Mongrel
1 Hoarding Dragon
2 Glacial Crasher
1 Siege Dragon

Spells (11)

1 Rogue’s Gloves
1 Sacred Armory
1 Tyrant’s Machine
1 Shrapnel Blast
2 Ensoul Artifact
1 Brawler’s Plate
1 Staff of the Flame Magus
1 Staff of the Mind Magus
2 Lava Axe

Lands (25)

1 Darksteel Citadel
12 Mountain
12 Island


This is definitely an artifact-happy deck with the Dragons as curve-topping threats. First, we’ll take a look at the two rare Dragons.

Back in July of 2014, some players were raging that Wizards of the Coast would reprint Grindclock in the Magic 2015 Core Set. Considering that it is a set with strong playables such as Chord of Calling, Shivan Reef, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth at rare, this frustration is more than a bit understandable. However, mill is a very popular casual deck mechanic, and one even I myself have dabbled with on several occasions.

Grindclock was originally printed in the Scars of Mirrodin block, in which it was a bit better received. It’s an artifact, and there were some decks that could utilize it fairly effectively in Standard at the time. Grindclock has two tap abilities, one to put a charge counter on it, and another that mills a target player’s library X cards, where X is the number of charge counters on Grindclock. It’s become very popular in Commander decks in recent years where mill is definitely a strategy that is quite well supported. But it doesn't fit at all into the Standard environment.

However, let’s look at its Limited implications. It’s only a 2 drop that can tap to gain a charge counter as soon as its played. As in Limited you are typically playing with a 40-card deck rather than a 60-card deck, Grindclock literally does speed up the game clock, often milling cards your opponent will need to win the game into their graveyard before they can draw them. With a card like Mind Sculpt already in Magic 2015, there is already a minor mill sub-theme going on. So in Limited, if you’re going for a control type build, Grindclock is not the worst rare draft in the world, and it’s likely never going to be first-picked.

One cool combination that existed in the Magic 2015 set was with the two-drop Enchantment, Ensoul Artifact, which turns an artifact into a 5/5 creature. A Grindclock that is also a 5/5 creature is pretty fun. But you're not going to build around that interaction.

So is Grindclock sort of a weak rare? It is for many people. But do remember, Core Sets are going to have a few cards for different sorts of players. Grindclock is one of those cards that some newer players or more casual players will want to run and it does have utility in Commander, so it’s not a bad reprint from that perspective. I’m not going to want to open any Grindclocks, personally, but when I draft the set I’m perfectly happy to draft one of the value uncommons in the set over that anyway.

In Standard, mill was not really a thing in the format anymore. Phenax, the God of Mill (technically he’s Phenax, God of Deception) was a potential core piece of a mill deck, but that plan never emerged as viable competitively.

Phenax allows for a lot of card milling to go on., but mill simply never had a deck that actually emerged into a real contender in the Standard meta-game. Gaining a card like Mind Sculpt in Magic 2015, which is a sorcery for 1U that mills a target opponent 7 cards, didn't even help. Consuming Aberration, one of the deck’s main win conditions rotated out of Standard that following October. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, an often overlooked planeswalker, which looked to be a strong piece of a mill deck, remained a part of the post-Return To Ravnica block Standard. But it never made a mill deck work, except in Modern where more powerful mill cards exist.

That being said, Grindclock was perhaps the worst rare you could pull from a Magic 2015 booster box… But it kept up a mill sub theme that seems to emerge in a lot of Core Sets. So it made sense, even if it was sort of a seemingly random inclusion in a set meant to make artifacts into 5/5 powerhouses...

When it comes to  Constricting Sliver, six mana for a 3/3 creature is a lot for Constructed. It has a great effect, though, turning all of your Slivers into Banisher Priests. It does have some good synergy with commonly played Slivers in Commander. But for Standard and Modern, it’s fairly highly costed. It’s a good addition to  to the Sliver toolbox, but not one that really should see any play outside of “kitchen table” Magic or Commander.

Leeching Sliver is another strong Sliver from Magic 2015 that doesn’t look strong on the surface. It’s a 1/1 for 1B that says “Whenever a Sliver you control attacks, defending player loses 1 life.” Like Diffusion Sliver these effects stack. I did have this to say about Leeching Sliver previously:

“It has been mentioned by some players that Thorncaster Sliver is already in Standard and does pretty much the same job as Leeching Sliver, and in fact, is able to make Slivers deal damage to creatures as well. However, Thorncaster Sliver is 5 mana. Leeching Sliver is two mana, and their abilities stack as separate instances. So Leeching Sliver is overall a far more aggressive card and even though it’s only a 1/1, Thorncaster is merely a 2/2.”

I definitely like this card over the Thorncaster Sliver. As a two-drop, it may be fairly easy to remove, but it also is going to help deal its fair share of damage before it’s gone.

Sliver Hivelord is easily an auto-include in any Sliver Commander deck. Still, he isn’t quite the Commander that the other three 5-color Sliver Legendary Creatures in Sliver Legion, Sliver Overlord, or Sliver Queen are. The Legion and Queen, however, are quite pricey money-wise, and Overlord himself is about $20 USD. Also, only the Legion is Modern-playable, and he would definitely be played considering he’s a 7/7 for 5 mana (WUBRG) and the weight of his effect: “All Sliver creatures get +1/+1 for each other Sliver in play.”

That being said, making all Slivers you control indestructible is huge, especially in a Slivers mirror match-up – unlikely, but possible. Being able to survive most board-wipes definitely helps your cause. He’s also currently the least expensive of all of the Sliver Legendaries (at this time). He is definitely a potential Commander, but his best place is in Constructed.

Lastly we have the Sliver-friendly land, Sliver Hive.

Modern already has Cavern of Souls  and  Ancient Ziggurat  to help cast Slivers, but having yet another play-set of a land that fixes mana for any of your Slivers very much helps. In Standard,  Sliver Hive  and  Mana Confluence  is all you really have. The fact that it also can tap for 1 colorless mana is a nice bonus, and the third ability to create a 1/1 colorless Sliver creature token for 5 mana is just a nice little bonus you can use as a mana sink (as long as you control a Sliver, that is.) It’s a very strong non-basic land, even though its usage is so narrow.

Magic 2014 had a bunch of Slivers, too. So when these Magic 2015 slivers arrived, Slivers would appear to be a playable deck in Standard. There was Galerider Sliver at a single Blue mana able to give all of your Slivers flying, and Manaweft Sliver at 1G to help all your Slivers become five-color mana rocks. You also had Predatory Sliver at 1G to give all of your Slivers +1/+1 and Blur Sliver to give all of your Slivers haste. To top it all off, you had Bonescythe Sliver at 3W to give all of your Slivers double strike. All things considered, you could have an extremely nasty Sliver list. You even have  Obelisk of Urd in Magic 2015 to help with Tribal! It’s 6 mana but it has Convoke and gives all creatures of the chosen type you control +2/+2.

So are the Slivers good in Magic 2015? I would say that Constricting Sliver is only Commander playable, and Two-Headed Sliver may be a bit better than Belligerent Sliver in Modern. Until October 2014, there was some potential for Slivers to make some noise. But after the arrival of the Khans of Tarkir block, these few Slivers became a curiosity in Standard. Most of these Slivers are quite Modern-playable, though. They have all definitely strengthened Slivers in the Commander format. Five of them are also uncommon, which makes them easier to get, and the Hive is only a rare in a Core Set.

I like that Wizards put these new Slivers into the Magic 2015 Core Set, but it felt like a plant for Casual Constructed more than anything else. Slivers are not really a viable draft strategy in M15 Limited because there simply aren’t enough of them and there aren’t any at common. I do like all of the Slivers overall, however, and I’m excited to see them potentially start showing up in Modern on a more competitive basis. I love the tribe, and I wish they would bring back their original “hive-mind” flavor of affecting all Slivers, but I’ll live with these. After all, it’s always better when you get to enjoy the effects and not your opponents.

Final verdict: Magic 2015's Slivers are good. They made only a slight impact in Standard, though, with a very limited window in which to actually provide much value. But these few Slivers definitely gave deck builders in Modern and other formats more ammo to play with.